


Blue Garden

by roseluu (rowanscrown)



Series: We'll Nearly Fall [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 13:58:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11487804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowanscrown/pseuds/roseluu
Summary: Sometimes, Arthur thinks he's living a different reality than everyone else.





	Blue Garden

Sometimes, Arthur thinks he’s living a different reality than everyone else. Sometimes, when he’s alone, with the wisps of his friends and the crowding paperwork, he takes a step back and becomes aware of how separated he is.

He’s an island. Isolated. A small island off land he isn’t fond of. Deep down, past the unbridled solidity in his chest, he knows he is. But, he’d never admit it.

But still. He occasionally wonders what it must be like for his brothers. He wonders but doesn’t care. It isn’t his problem, and it’s troublesome thinking about them, anyway. He lives in a different reality, sure, and the past, but not that far back.

Living a different reality. This is one of those times.

“It’s quite ridiculous you dropped the ‘u’s,” he says.

“How is that ridiculous?” Alfred is already done with his coffee. Arthur hates coffee.

“It’s bollocks.” He sips his tea. “Your people went through changing simple words just to change them. I’m beginning to think it has something to do with your lack of common sense.”

“I’m wounded, Artie,” Alfred says. The words slide out through his grin. He raises a brow. “Do you want to know the real reason I got rid of them?”

“Do your worst.”

“It’s because I was trying to get rid of _you_!” Alfred tips his head back into that obnoxious laughter of his. It crawls through Arthur’s shirt, under his skin.

“Hilarious. I’m afraid I’m so out of breath I can’t laugh.” His fingers move by themselves, straitening his waistcoat that’s been pressing flat into the back of his neck for some time now. He hadn’t moved once to correct it since Alfred arrived earlier this grey morning.

“An act of rebellion,” Alfred says. His feet wiggle on the coffee table. “Pretty clever on my part, right, Artie?”

“Wanker,” he mutters, despite himself.

Alfred is clearly bored, has been for hours now as he watched re-runs of _I Love Lucy_ from Arthur’s old telly. He occasionally peers Arthur’s way when he switches between a novel and his tea. This time, he continues staring as Arthur sets down his tea and huddles back into his curled position, book on his knees.

Alfred says, “I think I’ll keep it.”

Arthur doesn’t raise his head. “Hm?”

“I’m going to keep the words that way.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “I hadn’t told you to change them.”

Alfred still grins. “I don’t think you can tell me much of anything, Artie.”

*

Arthur does not like being called ‘Artie.’ It makes him sound like some sort of pet. Sometimes, in that reality he cannot see, he knows he must be one.

Matthew used to, and still does, call him Arthur. He says it without that damned French accent – without his _Canadian_ -French accent – and the letters work perfectly with his mouth. He doesn’t say ‘Artie’, or _Angleterre_ , or _amor_. He says his name like embroidered silk, like something he can touch but wishes he could. Maybe that’s why Arthur had always liked Matthew the best.

Arthur does not like to like people.

Matthew says it again this time: “Arthur.” It follows with words Arthur doesn’t catch because he’s hung on the beauty of it all. Matthew thinks Arthur doesn’t remember the beauty of it all, where the beauty had sprouted from.

He says, “Yes, lad?”

Matthew chews on his lip, and his eyes drift side to side a moment, like he’s observing the air between them. “Just…” His voice drifts off. “I wonder sometimes why everyone isn’t favorable of you.”

The smile comes from somewhere. It twitches, though, as it is sardonic. “Why, I wonder the same thing.”

Matthew does not see the humor, the satire Arthur has woven into his own skin. He sees the past he’d witnessed after Alfred had clamored out of the house. He sees when the boots had stomped and shoved him away before locking Arthur’s bedroom door.

“Well, I told you I’d be there for you,” Matthew says. "No matter what."

It’s a shame, really, that Matthew is next to useless, his fleeting international relations, lack of political outbursts, his military. He burns things when people aren’t looking and doesn’t hide because no one sees him. And, at the end of the day, he brings back the past.

This is why Arthur does not like to like people.

*

When he was a pirate, he got a real kick out of the women. He’d been wounded back then, in the head. Being wounded in the head doesn’t ever really go away. Neither does the skill of pushing away the air people seem to notice when Arthur talks to them. People do not change. But perspective does.

He never liked women. Not physically, not sexually. Nothing about them was pleasing. But, he did when he was a pirate. The ache in his back hadn’t faded from being a spoil of war, tangled in chains and keeping his mouth shut while he imagined how his hands would feel around that nimble neck as he gauged his wrists until blood slicked them out of his way. But, that doesn’t matter, because when he was a pirate he liked the women.

His ship didn’t have a plethora of women to pick from. There was no picking during that time. You get what you get and don’t throw a bloody fit. But when his ship continued rolling up to land, he took and took and conquered. He found he didn’t need, want, to pick, because the women didn’t matter. They were all the same. They pleased him enough to not kick them out of his quarters during his stay. And when they did ask those pesky words, sometimes if they are brave enough to poke at his body, “Where? Where did all of those come from?”, he waved them away, and they didn’t ask again.

When he was a pirate, he liked the women. That reality was there, for the briefest of moments. And when he remembered the past and that bunny that was nothing but an annoyance amid gold, stolen treasure, free sex, land, land, _land_ , he would take more. Take more and he wouldn’t remember.

Francis, in the middle of that blasted spout, came to his land, secret, huddled his uniform and feathered hat in a ratty bag. Arthur punched him in the nose and almost sent him off, but Francis punched him harder.

Francis, now, doesn’t punch him immediately. The wall is there, yes, but why wouldn’t it be? Francis had been the one in the past, who found him, who doesn’t bring anything up (not while sober). Though, when he sees Francis, he sometimes remembers the women, and how he had been one of them. That hole starts again, gnawing at his brain, sucking and flooding all at once.

When Francis visits, he says, “Pathetic, Arthur. You could do much better.”

Francis touches him like he owns his skin. It’s disgusting, really. It makes his body crawl like Alfred’s laugh. The fingers don’t poke or prod, they brush, a fluid wind brushing the trees and swelling clouds of his land, goosebumps raising underneath the soil. This time, he brushes the raised, purple spots just barely peeking out of his collar. He slaps his hands away.

He should say something back, but he is unsure. So he doesn't this time. _This_ time. _Just_ this time. Arthur silently hands him a freshly made cup of Earl Grey, swamped with four sugar cubes. Strange since Francis always downs some of the most bitter, red wine.

“You shouldn’t be doing it, _amor_ ,” Francis says behind Arthur’s least favorite teacup. “You’re aware you’re digging yourself a grave you escape from, yes?”

“You know nothing about it,” Arthur says. The anger builds in his chest, yet he doesn’t gripe or hiss. His sips at his tea and notices how similar Matthew and Francis hold their cups, pinkie curled but still raised, cradling it at a slight tilt to where the knuckle of his pointer finger bends at a forty-five-degree angle sky-ward.

“He cares nothing for you.” Francis sets his cup down.

Arthur taps his fingers one-by-one on the counter. Francis’ eyes are not like the rest of him. They aren’t bright and starry like in romanticized soliloquies and long-worded, bland poems. They’re blue. Just blue. Medium blue. “What he wants is no concern of mine.”

Francis smiles. “Does what you want matter?”

“That question is rubbish.”

“Well, I don’t think so.” Francis, the fucker, plucks his spoon out of his cup and places it in his mouth, nose scrunching. He places it in his own cup and swirls the remaining melting sugar in spirals. “I don’t think what you want has ever mattered,” he hums. “Not to me, not to Alfred, certainly not to anyone else. There’s something beautiful in that, I believe.”

Woman. He sees it then. Long, blond hair down to a slim waist, widened at the hips for bearing children. It flutters over his fingers like a phantasm touch. Francis had told him once that, as a matter-of-fact, Arthur was one of the two people he’d ever fallen in love with. Arthur doesn't see it.

“Beautiful?”

“Beautiful, as in mysterious,” Francis says. His finger waves through the air once before curling around the tip of his black turtle-neck. “Mysteriously beautiful. I have not been very good to you, have I, Arthur?”

“Very funny, frog.” The teacup clatters on the table, and he smiles. “I don’t take bait.”

*

Arthur, under it all, understands that it’s not right. Something’s amiss. Maybe it’s his wounded head. Maybe, as he’s been told, he’s too stubborn for his own good.

It doesn’t change anything, though, what they’re doing. Arthur is getting what he wants. He doesn't care what anyone else wants. That’s how it is. That’s the truth. In this reality, yes, it lacks the line that extends the possibilities of what exactly he wants. But, he has it. He has it.

He’s digging the grave again.

He gets this weird satisfaction when he’s with Alfred. He normally doesn’t feel like his chest is bursting at the seams, because when Alfred whispers something, if not something then nothing, into his naked shoulder, there’s that part of him that feels the wall crackle. Alfred doesn’t see it, because he doesn’t look at his eyes. And when he does, the wall has already built itself back up.

He really, _really_ hates Alfred.

He has never liked Alfred. Alfred is too demanding, too childish, too lovable to be liked by him.

But, that’s what being liked is to Arthur. Arthur does not like to like people, but he enjoys hating them. That wall is too precious to rid.

Alfred does not chase after him, either. He’s in for it because Arthur is good in bed, does what he’s told. He’s there for sex, and so is Arthur.

But that night, just like that stupid ‘ _this one time_ ’, Alfred finally asks, “What the hell is wrong with you, anyway?”

Alfred, of course, must be bored. When they’re done in bed, Arthur either turns over and falls asleep, or sits in the recliner next to his window, looking out into the city. Alfred stays awake for the next few hours, eyes up at the ceiling or at his phone. During this night, the question doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t expect anything. Arthur doesn’t answer.

Alfred continues, “I mean, you always have something to say, but in bed you’re silent, and, like, you always look like you’re in pain. Which I know isn’t true.” Arthur, out of the corner of his eye, sees the silhouette of his arm wave through the air. “There must be a sob story. C’mon, man. Tell me your tragic past.”

Alfred has always been too strong in body, but never strong, _especially_ not old, in mind. He knows history, yes, but he doesn’t understand it. Doesn’t have a lick of sense in translating the textbooks into what happened with them as people.

“I don’t have a tragic past,” Arthur says.

“Hm. Well.” Alfred arches his back to scratch his shoulder. Arthur sees a hickey underneath the broad outline of his chin.

“Who else are you shagging?” Arthur can’t help but ask.

Alfred laughs, slightly muffled when he presses his cheek into the pillow. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Of course I do. That filthy thing between your legs is regularly in me _and_ someone else. I would like to know if they have any diseases.”

Alfred likes games, as well. They used to play tag in the poppies back then, and Alfred taught him Pinochle when it was becoming popular. He says, “If you answer my question, I’ll answer yours.”

“Yes, yes, fine.” Arthur rubs his palm over his bare thigh. “People did not like me, a long time ago.”

“Dude, people don’t like you now.”

He narrows his eyes. “I answered your question, now answer mine.”

Alfred seems unsatisfied, but he says, “It was Mattie.”

Arthur scoffs. “You’re joking.”

Alfred laughs again. “I wasn’t fucking him. It was a dare. We were hanging out with Gilbert.”

Gilbert. Bloody heathen. Arthur remembers their one night in the belly of Gilbert’s ship. “That arse. Don’t hang around him. He’s a bad influence.”

“Is he?” Alfred shifts a moment to his other side. It’s a large movement that means he wants Arthur to look. He swivels to jut out his opposite shoulder. A reveling, dark mark lies there, patched. “Now that. That’s from Francis. And I was most certainly fucking him.”

Figures.

*

In moments, he says, “Fuck you” when he means “Fuck me”, and in some other moments, he says, “Fuck me” when he means “Fuck me.” There is no in between. There is nothing else.

When he had the chance to take Francis, he hadn’t. After the Hundred Years War, they don’t talk about it. But, Francis drinks his tea. He’d never done that before.

Francis seems to see the in between, when there is no in between. And when he sees it, that means it’s actually there, right? But, Arthur doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t want to understand.

When he took down Antonio’s armada, the man played right into his arms. And, when Antonio was in his arms, Arthur could not see anything. He tried to, _tried_. He tried to conquer him, squeeze out that pride, wring out the innocence of Lovino’s eyes by taking Antonio’s body in front of him. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do it.

He was what Antonio didn’t have. Arthur left him alone to trudge in the deaths of his people.

Arthur does not like to show weakness, and that weakness was not inflicting pain on people he saw the reality in. Antonio looked like the embodiment of what Arthur wasn’t.

Alfred came along not too long after that.

Then Alfred left, and took the reality with him.

Antonio doesn’t say anything about it.

*

Arthur is not close with people.

That’s why, decades later, when Alfred no longer shows up with hickeys and nail marks of another lover, Arthur does not trust him.

But, Arthur is getting what he wants. That’s what counts, doesn’t it?

Arthur sees the in between. And, Alfred begins falling down the hole.

“I could kill you, you know,” Arthur whispers, guttural into the silver moonlight seeping through the windows. “I could wrap my hands around your neck and snap it. I could stab you. I could suffocate you until your body stops moving.” And stops laughing.

Alfred blinks for a moment before he smiles. He’s lying on his side, everything curvy and rounded and muscled. Arthur has never been like that. He’s always been flat sides and sharp edges.

Alfred says, “You wouldn’t. Because you love me. You hate that you love me, and you hate yourself.”

Alfred has not fallen down the bottomless hole yet. But, when he starts to fall, he doesn’t think it’s without end. Arthur Kirkland does not know what he wants, and Alfred F. Jones does _not_ fall in love. Alfred has seen the West and East reunite; he’s seen Ivan when left alone; he’s seen Arthur on his knees after his finger had been a centimeter from pulling the trigger to empty a bullet into his head. He’s seen soldiers hold Arthur back from embedding that same bullet into his own head.

What Alfred hasn’t seen is past, and certainly hasn’t been alive long enough to have much of one.

Arthur finds his own just bloody hilarious.


End file.
